GOP on Benghazi: Why still no firings?

House committee hammers State Dept official, calls for punishment

Libyan military guards check one of the U.S. Consulate’s burnt out buildings during a visit by Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, not shown, to the U.S. Consulate to express sympathy for the death of the American ambassador, Chris Stevens and his colleagues in the deadly attack on the Consulate last Tuesday, September 11, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012.
AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon

Libyan military guards check one of the U.S. Consulate’s burnt out buildings during a visit by Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, not shown, to the U.S. Consulate to express sympathy for the death of the American ambassador, Chris Stevens and his colleagues in the deadly attack on the Consulate last Tuesday, September 11, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012.

Accusing the State Department of merely shuffling deck chairs in response to the 2012 Benghazi attack, House Republicans hammered a senior official Wednesday about why no one has been fired at home or arrested aboard in the now year-old deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three Americans from San Diego County.

“When you mess up in leadership and people die, it would seem to me somebody has to be -- if we can use the word -- punished for that,” said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

“But no one has been punished at all in this situation.”

Reassigned

In testimony Wednesday, Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy didn’t name names but said four officials were relieved of senior positions because of Benghazi. One has been reassigned in the bureau of African affairs, one is director of the office of foreign missions, and the remaining two are in the process of being reassigned to positions with no worldwide purview.

According to congressional testimony and news reports, they are

Eric Boswell: Formerly assistant secretary of diplomatic security.

Charlene Lamb: Formerly deputy assistant secretary for international programs in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

Raymond Maxwell: Formerly deputy assistant secretary of state in bureau of near eastern affairs responsible for Maghreb nations, including Libya.

Republicans also portrayed the criminal investigation into the terrorists responsible as lax – saying the FBI has declined to enter Libya to arrest suspects, despite a CNN reporter interviewing the suspected ringleader there.

Some committee members called into question the reliability of the Accountability Review Board led by Thomas Pickering, former ambassador to the United Nations. They said the board was stacked with people with too-close ties to the State Department officials being scrutinized.

Republicans also peppered Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy with perhaps the oldest question in this matter: Why wasn’t security better at the rented diplomatic compound in Benghazi, and who is to blame?

Kennedy said all spending requests but one for fortifications to the compound were approved.

In the big picture, he said, there wasn’t enough congressional funding to build a new structure in Benghazi that would have met State Department standards for security – something that can take up to four years.

As for no one being fired, Kennedy said that losing a senior title, as four officials did, means something.

“Four employees of the State Department were relieved of their senior positions as assistant or deputy assistant secretary of state. … I submit that accountability includes being relieved from your job and being reassigned to other positions,” said Kennedy, who has been a target of blame himself for decisions regarding Benghazi security policy.

He didn’t name names but said one of the four has been reassigned to a lower-level job in the State Department’s bureau of African affairs; one is director of the office of foreign missions; the remaining two are in the process of being reassigned to positions of lesser responsibility and no worldwide purview.